In Transbaikalia, miners of the Darasun mine suspended their hunger strike after receiving wages for May, but they continue to strike. According to mining drilling and blasting foreman Andrei Mikheyichev, if they are not paid wages for June by July 30, the hunger strike will continue.
On the morning of July 26, ten of the 92 starving miners of the "South-Western" mine of the Darasun gold mine in the Trans-Baikal Territory were taken to the hospital, reported the publication "Sibir.Realii" with reference to Andrei Mikheichev, an underground mining foreman, who participated in the action.
According to him, the remaining miners are not going to stop their hunger strike.
As Mikheichev said, the starving miners are under the supervision of a doctor. Based on the results of the morning examination, ten people were found to have high blood pressure; after the necessary medical procedures in the hospital, they will return and continue their hunger strike. The city of Darasun is located near Chita.
Why did the miners go on hunger strike?Mine workers have long been dissatisfied with regular delays in wages and their size. But the hunger strike itself began on July 24, after a representative of the company that owns the Uryumkan mine threatened to turn off the electricity in the mine and flood it.
By this time, the miners had not received wages for almost three months.
Initially, 55 employees went on a hunger strike; by the end of the working day, the number of those on hunger strike increased to 92 people. The miners' wives take part in the action.
How the administration and authorities reactAccording to a Sibir.Realii correspondent, over the past 24 hours no one has entered into negotiations with those on hunger strike. On the morning of July 26, the director of the mine, Evgeny Rogalev, left for a special meeting with the governor of the region, Natalya Zhdanova.
The local prosecutor's office opened an administrative case regarding delays in salaries, the total amount of debt exceeds 34.3 million rubles. Rogalev said the day before that the company does not have money to pay employees due to the fact that Promsvyazbank stopped financing the deal to purchase the mine.
According to him, the new owner got the mine in bad conditions. technical condition, out of five mines, only one was able to establish operation, the income from which does not exceed 10 million rubles. They, according to Rogalev, are not enough for anything.
He also stated that he had sent letters to various authorities, including the head of the region and the FSB, with a request to facilitate the resumption of funding.
New ownerIn the fall of 2017, the Yuzhuralzoloto company, the former owner of the mine, sold 100% of the authorized capital of Darasunsky Mine LLC to the Uryumkan company. According to the director of the mine, Promsvyazbank was supposed to finance the purchase, but did not do so in full. The press service of Promsvyazbank reported that the bank has never financed the Darasun mine project of the Uryumkan group of companies.
According to the mine administration, technical equipment the mines are 90% worn out, and only one out of five mines is in working order.
Not for the first timeIn total, 400 people are employed at the mine. And the enterprise itself is a city-forming enterprise for the Vershino-Darasun village.
In early March 2018, former gold mine workers went on a hunger strike after layoffs in January - they demanded compensation. According to the miners, more than 100 people did not receive the money.
Nine participants of the hunger strike at the gold mining enterprise Darasunsky Rudnik LLC in the Trans-Baikal Territory were admitted to the regional hospital today due to problems with blood pressure. The miners went on hunger strike on July 24 due to non-payment of wages.
“For some, the pressure dropped to 110, for others it rose to 160, 83 miners continue to participate in the protest, a total of 92 people supported the hunger strike,” Andrei Mikheichev, a mining master of drilling and blasting operations, told Interfax.
According to him, the miners intend to continue the hunger strike and seek repayment of wage arrears.
The head of the enterprise, Evgeny Rogalev, left for Chita, where he will meet with the Plenipotentiary Representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Siberian Federal District Sergei Menyailo and the governor Trans-Baikal Territory Natalya Zhdanova.
In turn, the press service of the regional Ministry of Health reports that during the first day of the strike the condition of people was satisfactory. On July 26, after another medical examination at the enterprise, nine people were taken to the local hospital for a more thorough examination and a decision on their possible hospitalization.
“People complained of dizziness and malaise due to high blood pressure,” the report notes. Miners who have gone on hunger strike are examined twice a day by a paramedic at the local hospital in the village of Vershino-Darasunsky. Earlier it was reported that miners of Darasunsky Mine LLC went on a hunger strike, demanding payment of wages.
As of July 24, 2018, wage arrears for May-June 2018 to employees amount to about 32 million rubles, Interfax clarifies.
“The last time, in May, all the miners were given 1,340 rubles, everyone thought it was an advance. Since then they stopped paying. Today my husband’s salary arrears amount to about 200 thousand rubles, he hasn’t even received his vacation pay yet,” - said the wife of one of the workers, Yulia Shchukina.
Earlier it was reported that a case of administrative offense under Art. 5.27 Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation (“Failure to pay on time wages a person who was previously subjected to administrative punishment for a similar offense"). The territorial body organized an inspection of the incident Federal service for Labor and Employment and the regional department of the RF IC, TASS clarifies.
In recent months, this is not the first performance by miners of the Darasun mine. On May 17, about 80 workers of the enterprise went on strike and refused to leave the mine. Before this, the management stated that the miners would be paid only 30% of their salaries due to failure to fulfill plans. In April, the miners went on strike again. Then they wanted to cut their salaries in half, but after the protest they paid them in full. At the same time, the plenipotentiary representative of the President of the Russian Federation in the Siberian Federal District, Sergei Menyailo, came to the mining village. In September 2017, about 50 former mine workers went on a hunger strike for several days due to delays in payment of wages. It was reported that on September 19-20 people
Workers of the Darasun mine hold a protest.
In the Trans-Baikal Territory, the hunger strike of miners of the Darasun mine continues for the second day, joined by about 50 people. It involves both employees of the enterprise whose employer is delaying their salaries, as well as previously laid-off employees who are dissatisfied with the amount of the dismissal settlement. The miners intend to continue the action until they are paid in full. According to the regional government, today the first tranche in the amount of 11.8 million rubles was received into the accounts of the Darasun mine; a total of 38 million is required to pay off debts.
By the second day of the hunger strike of the miners of the Darasun mine, the number of its participants increased from 20 to 50 people. One participant was taken to the hospital by ambulance in the morning: the woman’s blood pressure had risen sharply. The miners settled in the assembly hall of the administration of the village of Vershino-Darasunsky, Tungokochensky district, and intend to continue the action until the employer pays them in full. The reason for the hunger strike was the delay in wages and non-payment of redundancy benefits and payment to those laid off in full.
This is not the first protest at the Darasun mine. The miners already went on strike in May 2017, when 80 people refused to leave the mine due to disagreements with the management of the enterprise regarding the amount of pay for their labor. The conflict at the mine was resolved only after the governor of the region, Natalya Zhdanova, visited it. To persuade the miners to come to the surface, she had to go down into the mine herself. Presidential Envoy to the Siberian Federal District Sergei Menyailo also visited the strikers. At the end of the conflict, the owner of the Darasun mine, Yuzhuralzoloto, decided to lay off most of the company’s employees.
The mine itself is in the process of changing ownership; the Chelyabinsk company Yuzhuralzoloto, which previously owned it, is selling it to the Chita-based Uryumkan LLC.
According to the official statement of Yuzhuralzoloto Management Company LLC, the purchase and sale agreement between the company and Uryumkan LLC was signed on August 15, 2017. “UGK does not bear full responsibility for the events taking place. All management issues are handled by Uryumkan LLC,” noted the company’s official statement. “It’s too early for us to ask these questions, we are not the owners yet,” answered Kommersant in Uryumkan when asked when the miners will receive their salaries. They reported that the deal has not yet been completed, the documents on it are being approved by the FAS.
The press service of the government of the Trans-Baikal Territory reported on Tuesday evening that the first tranche in the amount of 11.8 million rubles had been transferred to the company’s accounts, without specifying who exactly transferred the money. “The first payments to employees will begin in the near future,” assured First Deputy Prime Minister of the regional government Alexander Kulakov. According to regional officials, 38 million rubles are needed to fully repay debts.
As a source at Yuzhuralzolot told Kommersant, on Monday the company received a letter notifying them that 15 workers at the Darasun mine were starting a hunger strike on September 18 due to non-payment of wages that they were supposed to receive on September 15. “That is, the delay was three days,” noted Kommersant’s interlocutor.
In his opinion, the protest action is connected with the miners’ desire to draw attention to the mine, which is currently in a state of conservation.
The Kommersant source also reported that Yuzhuralzoloto had paid off almost completely with all laid-off employees. The head of the Tungokochensky district, Makhmet Izmailov, told Kommersant that among the hungry there are both miners and laid-off employees of the enterprise. “The dismissed believe that the employer paid them at an underestimated rate. The court is currently considering several hundred applications in this regard,” he told Kommersant. Mr. Izmailov also said that, according to his data, since the beginning of the strike, Yuzhuralzoloto has transferred 5 million rubles to the mine. to pay salaries to miners. He claims that Yuzhuralzoloto promised to pay the rest of the starving people by September 25. According to the prosecutor's office of the Trans-Baikal Territory, 454 people were fired between July 24 and August 4, the amount of the company's debt to them is being clarified.
Former employees of Darasunsky Rudnik LLC (part of OJSC Yuzhuralzoloto Group of Companies, YuGK) have stopped their hunger strike, Elena Nazarova, head of the information policy department of the Trans-Baikal Territory, told Interfax. “On Thursday night, all wage arrears were paid off to the miners. They separated,” she said. The remaining issues are being resolved by First Deputy Prime Minister of the regional government Alexander Kulakov, who is in the village of Vershino-Darasunsky, where the protest took place, Nazarova added.
Since September 18, more than two dozen former workers of the Vershino-Darasunsky mine began a hunger strike due to delays in payments during layoffs. As hunger striker Inna Babenko told the online publication Zabmedia, the company laid off about 500 people; they were promised settlement payments in mid-August, but were not paid. The starving people demanded full repayment of the debt. Complaints to the prosecutor's office, the labor inspectorate and the reception office of the presidential envoy to the Siberian Federal District Sergei Menyailo did not yield results, Babenko added. Interfax recalls that the debt to workers exceeded 38 million rubles. The starving people were in the office of the Darasun mine; doctors monitored their health; one woman was hospitalized.
The Investigative Committee and the prosecutor's office became interested in the situation.
In mid-May, at the same mine, 81 workers did not come to the surface due to disagreement with the recalculation of wages and delays in payments. The salary arrears to 873 employees of the Darasun mine amounted to 16,419,850 rubles, an informed source reported to Zabmedia at the time. He clarified that this was the salary for April, it was delayed for two days. A little later, SGC press secretary Natalya Martynenko told Vedomosti that management company will use 14 million rubles from its own funds to pay off the debt. She did not comment on the information from the Transbaikal media that the debt was 16 million rubles. According to Martynenko, a group of companies was considering the possibility of closing the Darasun mine due to losses.
In mid-August, YuGK JSC sold the Darasunsky mine to Uryumkan LLC (Trans-Baikal Territory), while production at the mine is not currently being carried out, and the new owner did not hire the shareholders, Interfax reports. According to the regional prosecutor's office, a total of 454 people were fired from the mine from July 24 to August 4, 2017.
The prosecutor's office also announced the completion of work to recover underaccrued wages in the interests of employees of Darasunsky Mine LLC in connection with the unreasonable application of the coefficient labor participation for the period from October 2016 to May 2017. In the interests of 656 employees, claims were sent to the court in the amount of 31.122 million rubles.
Today in the Trans-Baikal Territory, 33 miners of the Darasun mine went on a hunger strike. By mid-afternoon the number of strikers had almost doubled. Mine workers are demanding wages for May and June. The total debt of the employer to the miners is 35 million rubles. The owner of the enterprise claims that the bank refuses to execute a payment order to transfer money to the mine from the own funds of its owner, Uryumkan LLC. At the mine itself, they note that the bank refuses to transfer money due to the owner’s loan obligations.
The strike of workers at the Darasun mine (part of Uryumkan LLC) began this morning. As Kommersant was told at the enterprise, at nine in the morning 33 miners, who had notified the mine administration in advance of their decision to go on a hunger strike, settled down near the mine administration building. “People are demanding their salaries for May and June be paid,” the company reported. “When I arrived in the village of Vershino-Darasunsky, the number of starving people had increased to 60 people. They are sitting at one of the administrative buildings of the enterprise. People are not going to leave the plant territory: they are sitting with sleeping bags. They were given a room where they could spend the night,” Mikhail Gornov, head of the Tungokochensky district administration, told Kommersant. According to him, the issue of transferring money from Promsvyazbank to repay the debt should be resolved within two to three days.
The employer's salary debt, according to him, is about 35 million rubles.
General Director of Uryumkan LLC Vitaly Koidan told Kommersant that in 2017, when the Darasunsky mine became part of the company’s structure, negotiations were underway between the owner and Promsvyazbank about lending to the mine in the amount of 800 million rubles. “This decision provided a chance to launch the enterprise. However, the bank began reorganization, and the issue of lending was postponed indefinitely. All this time, the Darasun mine lived at the expense of our company’s own funds,” Mr. Koidan told Kommersant. He added that he does not know why the bank refuses to execute payment orders to the mine from Uryumkan’s own funds. “We wrote a letter to the bank, there is no official response yet. The credit committee is due to meet one of these days, we are waiting for its decision,” noted Vitaly Koidan. According to Mikhail Gornov, the credit committee of Promsvyazbank already considered this issue last week and refused, despite the fact that the governor of the region, Natalya Zhdanova, petitioned for a positive decision.
According to the general director of the Darasun mine, Evgeny Rogalev, Promsvyazbank refuses to transfer money due to Uryumkan’s loan obligations.
“The bank is insuring itself. “Uryumkan” took out loans for $50 million, $8.9 million should be repaid this year, but the bank assumes that the company will not repay this amount, and therefore the funds are not sent to the Darasun mine at all,” Chita quotes Mr. Rogalev .ru".
Promsvyazbank itself stated that the bank never financed the Darasun Mine project of the Uryumkan Group of Companies. However, the bank said that “it is ready to conduct a constructive dialogue and, together with the owners of the Uryumkan Group of Companies, find the optimal solution to the problem.”
This is not the first strike at the Darasun mine. In May 2017, more than 80 miners refused to leave the mine to the surface. In September 2017, more than 50 miners went on strike again. At the same time, the company’s owner changed: the Chelyabinsk company Yuzhuralzoloto sold the asset to the Chita-based Uryumkan.
Senior Assistant Prosecutor of the Trans-Baikal Territory Evgeny Sinelnikov told Kommersant that on July 16, the supervisory authority made a representation to the management of the enterprise in connection with non-payment of wages. According to him, the prosecutor's office is deciding whether to involve the employer in administrative responsibility according to Art. 5.27 Code of Administrative Offenses (non-payment of wages). The investigative department of the Investigative Committee of Russia for the Trans-Baikal Territory began a pre-investigation check at the enterprise.
